Shallow DOF, crushed blacks, unrealistic colors, slomo, anyone bored yet?

[stewarthemley]

Just thinking aloud. The new Sony 700 looks really interesting but already I'm bored rigid with super slomo. And i'm sort of wondering why so much has to be OOF. Etc, etc... Reminds me of when Quantel's Paintbox (whoops, showing my age) hit the fan, sorry, market, and then Photoshop. We all used the gizmos because they were there. Looking back on stills and footage from then, that's so easy to see. Psychologists call it the "scribble stage".

I'm looking forward to the post-gizmo stage when once again good basic storytelling and interesting content are what we enjoy and value. My hope is that new/young image makers will have seen us old gits get excited about what the gear can do for us and prefer to show what they can make the gear do for us.  I dream of an end to the scribble stage.

[Morgan_Moore]

If its super slo mo - its gotta be super interesting - the decisive moment - IMO

Spent today thinking about actors and a shot list and working a script

Much more challenging

S

[jjj]

Spent today thinking about actors and a shot list and working a script

Much more challenging

Much more interesting!   

[jjj]

Just thinking aloud. The new Sony 700 looks really interesting but already I'm bored rigid with super slomo. And i'm sort of wondering why so much has to be OOF. Etc, etc... Reminds me of when Quantel's Paintbox (whoops, showing my age) hit the fan, sorry, market, and then Photoshop. We all used the gizmos because they were there. Looking back on stills and footage from then, that's so easy to see. Psychologists call it the "scribble stage".

I predicted just after the 5DII was announced that we would be inundated with exactly what you are complaining about - scribbling.

As for shallow DoF, unless you can focus pull extraordinarily well, please don't shoot wide open with moving subjects. Besides the DoF at F5.6/8 on a full frame sensor is still pretty shallow when doing medium close ups.
And most importantly only use it if it serves the story.

I'm looking forward to the post-gizmo stage when once again good basic storytelling and interesting content are what we enjoy and value. My hope is that new/young image makers will have seen us old gits get excited about what the gear can do for us and prefer to show what they can make the gear do for us.  I dream of an end to the scribble stage.

Too many stills photographers thinking they were suddenly a film maker is as daft an idea as thinking being given a DSLR makes one a professional photographer.
Being good at stills rarely has anything to do with being a good director or story teller.

[bcooter]

I predicted just after the 5DII was announced that we would be inundated with exactly what you are complaining about - scribbling.

I've always found that talented people with good character and an open mind produce good work.

Not always at first, usually the first stage is trying to reinvent the wheel and do something that is unique with every frame.  usually that doesn't make great stills or motion and a lot of time can get in the way of the story.

Still, without that drive to reinvent the wheel, it would be a very boring world.

We've seen this with self made typesetters with the Mac, strange hacked up over processed stills with photoshop, now effected motion work for the sole reason of effecting imagery.

Anyway, that's part of the learning process and I've never subscribed to the fact that any artist should limit themselves to only one discipline.

The whole Idea is to throw a lot of stuff up  . . . see what works, then learn refinement and how to use that knowledge to improve a story.

IMO

BC

[fredjeang]

I think you're right.

What is happening nowdays is great, but IMO it has to be focussed or understood correctly.

We are like pirats; small gear, little budgets, and the requierement of different equipmnents, lighter solutions and more cost effective. There is an enormous amount of creativity all over the world in all this and some things work, others no. It's exciting time although the wild west and testings on the terrain.
The orthodoxy is broken and that's very good.

On the other-hand, I think that we shouldn't be too naive to beleive that our motion fathers haven't asked also the same questions before: how to make it lighter and more cost effective. And what we see they use are actually the result of long time evolution in the ways, techniques and gear. For the most part it's still not reachable for most of us.

The problem, IMHO, is that if we want to emulate the same lenguage of our "fathers" in motion with mediums 500 times lighters, we do a wrong calculation.

On the contrary, if we are inventing (or re-inventing) new lenguages, all that makes sense and it will work.

[Morgan_Moore]

I think motion people have been small and slight for years.. eng camera does it all and EX1 and the like on smaller programming

Probably 95% of what is watched is ENG cam leaving 5% hollywood

Its mixing the holly wood look..

[Rhossydd]

Shallow DOF, crushed blacks, unrealistic colors, slomo, anyone bored yet?

What do mean 'yet' ? It's been tedious and annoying since the 5DmkII first hit the market and it all became fashionable.
and don't forget to add pointless timelapse to that list too.

My hope is that new/young image makers will have seen us old gits get excited about what the gear can do for us and prefer to show what they can make the gear do for us.

I've not seen many "old gits" get excited about this at all. We're all old enough to be cynical and not rave over anything just because it is new. It's the young gits that weren't getting anywhere that hyped everything up to try to get on the band wagon.
I find it entertaining to read so called 'cinematographers' expecting autofocus on video cameras, in professional circles it's always been regarded as the mark of a complete amateur. No professional uses AF*


*The only possible caveat to that is Canon's AF broadcast lenses, but they've hardly sold any of those at all, hardly a surprise @ £150k. I've not come across anyone in the UK who has used one commercially, as opposed to trialling them for Canon.

[stewarthemley]

I can see I'm not alone.

But just to clarify, I'm all for creativity, which often stems from experimentation, which makes experimentation a Really Good Thing, IMO.

But, copying things like shallow DOF, etc, bloody etc, is not at all creative. It's just that: copying.

I almost bought some expensive (for me) jib and tracking gear but then when I studied a few videos to see what I ought to get, what I saw was so many moving shots that were simply not adding anything.  In fact, they were incredibly distracting. More dosh saved.

Maybe we should ask ourselves, when planning any sort of production: what best moves the narrative forward? Naturally, there'll be times when slow motion will add something, same with shallow DOF, tracking shots, etc. But all the time? Without a reason other than it's what people do right now? If I find myself doing that, my gear will be on ebay that same day.

I'll bet most, if not all these methods started with a truly creative director/DOP thinking hard about some problem in a script and coming up with, say, shallow DOF to highlight a character's situation/thought, etc. And fairly sure they became fashion when less than truly gifted people copied. To the point that while its fashionable, we don't notice it. But look back in a few years time and see how dated some of this stuff will look.

Actually, what I'm hoping for, is Sony to sell a stack of 700s, et al, for us to be swamped with super slow mo overnight and to get brassed off with it almost as quickly. Lets get it over and done with.

[fredjeang]

I'm super tired too of those pointless timelapses, of the non-ending shallow d.o.f testings all over the internet in the style: "Canon FD 50mm 1,4 on 7D" or "7D vs GH2" etc etc...it fast became a circus like stills. It's to the point that I've seen some serious filmakers in Vimeo having almost zero feedback and visits; while people like P.B when they do a non-sense timelapse or test a gear in front of a british canal with 3 ducks have thousands of repplies and "I-like", "I-share", and all the facebook style comments "you're so great"  etc...

And now, after the shallow D.O.F, the next mental hillness is called "4K". Everything that is-will not be 4K is crap. Like those who are claiming 50MP still camera and print postal size you know and have never edited one edito page in all their life.

It's completly pathetic, juvenile full of spots, annoying and hilarious.

I'm more and more convinced that the healphiest path is to step away (but very very away...) of this visual noise, really. Keep going learning in silence, get skilled, creative but also very humble because IMO this is another story than shooting 3 chubby models in a mall corall with strobes.

As for Paul's intervention, I agree. I said it several times in other posts, but we (photographers embrassing motion) are still very very amateurs and naive in many ways with this medium.

[Morgan_Moore]

Two videos of mine  The interest in cameras an gear is overwhelmingly dumb..

a 5d test 3k watches (basically in two days)


and an attempt at a mini doco.stroy telling, 1k watches (actually more than I thought!)


S

[fredjeang]

I liked the girl reportage very much.

What I don't get is this fashion (as it seems to be the norm now) to reveals all the gear involved? If they pay I'd understand. You 'd be sponsorized. But what is this "norm" everytime we open a video to see, shoot on Canon with this lens, this tripod, this cable etc...very soon we'll have the exact time when the DP went to pee outside. You'll see.

I understand perfectly however when some of what you sale is involved (the accessories), but that's very different, it's your own business.

[Morgan_Moore]

I liked the girl reportage very much.

What I don't get is this fashion (as it seems to be the norm now) to reveals all the gear involved?

I think it is just knowledge that 50% of the audience' may be interested in such matters

Also - I like to give some context to the shoot maybe - for example I shoot vehicles with a $500 stabilizer from a car  if I can make it look like a $80k camera car I want you to know

Maybe one should post a budget - in both cases here.. $0

[fredjeang]

That was indeed a good work. You're telling a story. I never asked myself what did you use or the IQ, I wanted to know about her. That's IMO the sign it worked well.

Cheers.

[Morgan_Moore]

To me the main camera spec is to keep the viewer inside the story

Moiree, jello, bad focus, yellow bands in a blue sky, wind noise, wind noise and wind noise, can take you outside of that story

the FS100 is good on most of those..

I thought the colour (desat) didnt work, however, as you could have thought she was ill

I did a blog here on shot choices.. http://dslr4real.tv/index.php?option=com_zoo&task=item&item_id=103&Itemid=1

S

[mmurph]

Two videos of mine  The interest in cameras an gear is overwhelmingly dumb..

a 5d test 3k watches (basically in two days)


and an attempt at a mini doco.stroy telling, 1k watches (actually more than I thought!)

Very nice Sam!  I like some of the abstract buzzers/lights/quick cuts about 2/3 of the way in. Maybe start with closer in versions of those - without revealing the sport at first - to set the pace at the beginning? Then keep them later.

That 5D3 one was quite conceptual! Time warp refrigerators - getting fat - about eating disorders?   (joke!)

In regards to this overall thread - this is basically our "student" work! Ever go to a photography conference, like SPE (Society for Photographic Education), where graduate students present? It takes 10-15 years to really find a strong voice in the medium.

Or you just do flowers, fashion (= young women), dogs & family as a hobby. Either way it takes a long time & a lot of hard work to transcend student-type work and gimmicks.

Almost sold my  ring flash since Alien Bees introduced a $300 one. So sick of ring images for a while ...

Now physically I can't really shoot stills or motion. So I read technical stuff and wish I could do creative! Y'all are lucky to be able to do it!

Cheers! Michael

[Morgan_Moore]

Thanks - I am indeed getting fat.

Now the discussion really worth having .. to me (maybe not on this thread)

Indeed I did want to get some action up at the front.. but didnt want to give the game away (so I didnt do it)

How to turn such a corner in the (shoot and) edit - thats the sort of thing that I am trying to learn and if you can do that, Epic or Iphone, you can really communicate the story and move your viewer around as you want

S

[Morgan_Moore]

Of course the real gem in the story is if she make the Olympics - so I should find out the day she will know and follow her.

Then the edit is simple maybe; bish bosh action, there are two places in the olympics, filler material, the outcome

S

[mmurph]

Thanks - I am indeed getting fat.

Now the discussion really worth having .. to me (maybe not on this thread)

Indeed I did want to get some action up at the front.. but didnt want to give the game away (so I didnt do it)

How to turn such a corner in the (shoot and) edit - thats the sort of thing that I am trying to learn and if you can do that, Epic or Iphone, you can really communicate the story and move your viewer around as you want

Yeah, content is so much more important than the technical. And yet I'm still obsessed with reading about equipment & tools - procrastination about taxes right now!   

I thought some of the red & green lights, timer, sounds, little abstract snippets were interesting - exciting. Get in just a little closer to crest abstracts, get the energy pumped up, then dump into the quiet story. A bit of how many films start with a series if almost still, aesthetically pleasing shots.

Just what I felt at that point. Your call of course! For some reason Joel Meyerowitz' framing and lingering shots drom "Pops", along with Jim Jarsmuch B&W's come to mind, though it's been a long time since I've seen either.

Just shoot more of that for now though. I know Robert Frank had all of the images for The Anericans before he came up with the edit structure for the book (Meyerowitz has a section on Sequencing of images in his History of Street Photography. Chapter opening, form echoing form, repeating, etc. )

Cheers! Good start! Michael

[stewarthemley]

Getting back, briefly, on topic...

I suppose to some extent one reason we use these gimmicks in our less-than-Hollywood productions, is that we are led by clients, if we want to stay in business, and if they demand that sort of treatment (using the term technically, as in, how we handle the script) then that's what we have to give them.

I had that pointed out to me in no uncertain terms this week. Chasing a new client, talked through the brief, listened hard and it became clear he wanted all this stuff because a competitor had it on his site and it "looked cool, cutting edge where we want to be". Can't argue with that.

If I want to do it my way, there's nothing stopping me. I just shouldn't expect to get paid for it.